India: The Country of Contrasts

India is a country of contrasts. After traveling throughout South India for the past three months, we have witnessed so much poverty, pollution and poetry of existence. It is a beautiful, wretched, aromatic, putrid, nourishing and soul-bleeding place. The wave of emotions evoked by our experiences […]

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Time for an Adventure

In autumn, drops of sunlight are metered out for mere moments. During the darkening days of the pending winter, my thoughts turn to sunnier times. Travel to warmer climes is on the horizon. Adventure awaits us in Southern India at the end of December. During […]

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Of Death and Love and All Those Things

What do you do during your father’s last days? I heard his voice, timid, but firm. He was an English teacher, dedicated to his craft and passionate for the language itself. “Write it down.” On a visceral level, from some place deep, I could feel his […]

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Is joy even possible?

Over 350 million people worldwide battle depression. According to the World Health Organization, depressive disorders have increasingly impacted adolescents in particular over the past decade. It not only affects individuals, but entire systems with an estimated cost on the global economy reaching around 1 trillion […]

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Time etched in our faces

Flipping over to my recent social media feed, I read a comment from a dear, lifelong friend who tenuously expressed both gratitude and wonder at turning 54 this year. She listed all the things gravity and strong emotions had done to her physical appearance (she […]

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The solace of the winter solstice

As December 21 approaches, we are skirting on the edges of dawn’s light, the threshold of tomorrow’s longer days. For the past few weeks, the sun’s weak rays have barely penetrated the sky. It has an effect on us all, propelling an inward motion, a […]

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Dipping into the Matrix

Wordle. An addictive word-guessing game that has you coming back for more. I started playing a few months ago. First for fun. Then for meaning. And for anyone who knows me, they know my first love has, and always will be, words and the power […]

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The decision of a single person

Life is a constant undulation, like the ocean itself. We think of the waves as a separate part of its entirety, but my experience is of another. The waves are not only a part of the ocean. They are the ocean itself. When we see […]

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What are we allowed to feel?

To say that times are turbulent is a tad understated. A tsunami of emotions has arisen from the years-long pandemic, stultifying our customary speed-laced rhythm and efficiency into a scramble to reorient ourselves through digital replacements. Just in the moment we thought we might breathe […]

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Slow Travel in the Times of COVID

Travel has become, shall we say, complicated since the pandemic swept across borders and into the lives of the global populace. Anticipation has been replaced by anxiety and a lurking, ominous sense of second-guessing whether we should just stay put instead remains. But the desire […]

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